In Appreciation of Douglas King

Douglas King. Photograph courtesy of Lui King

A trusted advisor, collaborator, consensus maker—and above all, a gentleman—Douglas King is being remembered as one of Perkins Eastman’s early leaders who shaped a culture of civility and inclusion. He died unexpectedly last month at the age of 81.

“He was a calming influence, a guiding influence,” says Co-CEO and Executive Director Nick Leahy. “He was like the diplomatic mortar that held the leadership together.” King joined the firm in 1991, but had worked with Brad Perkins and Mary-Jean Eastman for many years before they founded Perkins Eastman in 1981. “Doug and I began working together in 1973 when I joined Llewelyn-Davies Associates, a London-based planning and architectural firm,” Perkins explains.  “Mary-Jean began working with Doug when she moved from the client side [working for New York State] to our team when we were hired in 1977 to help New York City’s bid to host the 1984 Summer Olympics. When I moved over to Perkins & Will later that year, both Doug and Mary-Jean eventually joined me.” Those early relationships at Llewelyn-Davies also included Paul Buckhurst and Frank Fish, who went on to found BFJ Planning, now a Perkins Eastman affiliate.  “That’s why he became a foundation of Perkins Eastman,” Fish says, noting that history. “He was a fun person to work with because he had a nice sense of humor and a perceptive way of looking at architecture,” Buckhurst says. He was an effective leader in whichever role or job he held because he always championed the team effort and prized everyone’s contribution, Fish adds. “He was not only approachable professionally, but he had a sense of humility. He was not so proud or so full of his position that he wouldn’t do something to help someone out.” As the lead architect for Llewelyn-Davies, Fish says, King was once mistaken for a repairman because he went into someone’s office to fix its radiator.

King has been described as a Renaissance man, professionally speaking, whose career took him and his wife, Dorothée, to live in Tehran while he worked on the Iran capital’s master plan, and then to the shores of Brazil, Trinidad, Guyana, and the Middle East to plan major resort developments.

Perkins Eastman Co-Founder and Chairman Brad Perkins fondly recalls how he and Doug King worked in their bathing suits in Bahia, Brazil, as their team developed a master plan for Praia do Forte in 1980, which has since become a major destination resort.

The Kings moved to the Bahamas in the early 1980s when they both worked as architects for that government’s Ministry of Housing. Doug opened a design-build construction firm in West Palm Beach in the latter part of the decade, where his son, Lui, worked on construction sites while he studied architectural engineering at the University of Miami.

Doug, Dorothée, and Lui King in an undated photo. The Kings named their son after Louis Kahn, for whom they both worked after studying under him at the University of Pennsylvania. “They didn’t want a spelling that was easily identifiable with any country,” Lui says. And ever the designers, he adds, “they thought it looked graphically better.” Photograph courtesy of Lui King

Doug joined Perkins Eastman as a partner when they moved back to New York in 1991. There, he led its burgeoning Senior Living practice, but also worked on government projects such as the Library of Congress’ Historic American Building Survey.

Richard Northway remembers how Doug didn’t hesitate to put on waders and plod through the flooded lower levels of the Sheffield Farms Dairy Company in the Bronx—the first milk plant to use pasteurization—in order to document its structure and architectural features for the Historic American Building Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record before it was demolished. Photographs via Library of Congress

King surprised his colleagues in 2005 when he retired early to focus on  Willowbrook at Newfield in southwestern Maine, his family’s open-air village museum where visitors could experience life in a 19th-century farming community. (He ultimately closed the property in 2016 due to financial troubles, but most of its artifacts and buildings have since been transported upstate and are on view at Curran Village near Bangor.)

But during his 14 years at Perkins Eastman, King made a deep impact on his fellow partners, colleagues, and the young professionals he mentored. “Doug was part of the core personality of our firm. He was smart, funny, a true professional, and a loyal friend,” Perkins says. “All of our lives and careers were enriched by our opportunity to work with him for so many years.”

Many cite their experience working with him on Copper Ridge, a pivotal Senior Living project that catered specifically to dementia residents—a relatively new concept in the mid ’90s. “I think Senior Living projects spoke to him in a different kind of way, to help people who struggle through the aging process. Doug really leapt into it wholeheartedly,” says Dave Hoglund, who led that project and worked “intimately” with King on its design. On this particular site, “he had a real appreciation for landscape and the outdoors, and connecting indoor and outdoor spaces,” Hoglund says. “That was important for a population where, because of some of their struggles and life experiences, being outside wasn’t always possible.” As a result, Copper Ridge features big picture windows and enclosed courtyards that are safe and controlled. “That was something he definitely helped bring out on that project,” Hoglund says.

Susan DiMotta, an interior designer on that project, remembers the bonds that formed within the team as a result of King’s leadership. “It was a wonderful, collaborative effort—the total integration of architecture and interior design. He didn’t consider us as just swatch pickers and picking paint colors. We were involved in the entire flow of the project,” she says. “We felt like we were doing something that was innovative and that was focused on the resident who was going to live there. It was very rewarding.” Even more memorable were their trips from New York to the job site in Sykesville, MD. DiMotta lived on Long Island, a long commute to Penn Station for their early-morning trains, so King invited her to stay with him and Dorothée at their Upper West Side brownstone the night before. “He was very considerate of people’s lives outside the project. He just cared about people,” she says.

Susan DiMotta and her husband, Rod, at left, stayed in touch with the Kings after Doug’s retirement, and visited Dorothée and Doug, at right, at the Kings’ cottage on Fire Island. Photograph courtesy of Susan DiMotta.

Diana Sung also remembers their frequent travels to out-of-town projects. Doug loved going to good restaurants and had a keen eye for detail in the homes he and his wife remodeled in Manhattan and on Fire Island—yet he displayed his trademark sense of humor when the only options were fast food and a Motel 8 during a site visit to western New York. “Wow, what a choice!” he cracked, as Sung recounts, “but we made the best out of it and we had a lot of fun together—it was great.” While Hoglund was traveling with him, he learned the finer points of Italian brandy. “He had a love for grappa and taught me a lot about it,” he says, “all different types of grappa!” Similarly, several colleagues remembered his generosity in the office as everyone was working long hours at a time of the firm’s rapid expansion—from 60 employees when he joined to more than 700 when he left. He’d regularly pull out a bottle of rum—a favorite from his days in the Bahamas—at the end of the day, setting out glasses for anyone who stopped by. “There was always a waiting invitation to sit and chat about what was going on in the world or on our projects,” says Martin Siefering, who recently retired as a co-practice leader in Senior Living and calls King an important early mentor. “He often acted as a critic for me. I would share work with him and he would make suggestions and encourage me. He was always incredibly gentle and thoughtful. I always felt like I could go to him and I didn’t need to worry about feeling stupid.”

In his capacity as one of the six executives in the firm’s senior managing leadership at the time, Eastman remembers his wisdom in guiding the firm’s growth. “I was always involved in leading human resources and the management of people, and Doug was a person I trusted, whose counsel I trusted in leading people,” she says. Alan Schlossberg, whom King helped onboard to the Senior Living team, also came to serve with him on the executive committee. He was the firm’s conscience, Schlossberg says. “Doug really had a sensitivity for the staff, for the culture, for fairness. A lot of things in business pull you in different ways, but he always came back to the center, to the employees’ point of view. I really appreciated that he kept the employees’ perspective, and I think that was an important aspect of being a leader in a large organization: Who are the recipients of your choices?”

Kate Hanenberg was among those employees who admired him as a role model in business and in life. “He was inclusive to the degree that I’ve never seen anybody else be—everyone mattered. He was completely open to anybody’s thoughts,” she says, though he sought to make sure every project was as disciplined as it could be in serving the client’s needs. “He was a gentleman in the best possible sense of the word,” she says, “and a source of gravity in the office. I have missed working with him ever since he left. Those were hard shoes to fill.”

Doug and Dorothée gather with their family in a recent picture from Fire Island. Left to right: Dominic and Ella King, Natalia Cardelino, Dorothée, Doug, and Lui. Photograph courtesy of Lui King.

King is survived by Dorothée, his brother, Donald King, his son, Lui, Lui’s wife, Natalia Cardelino, and their children, Ella, 17, and Dominic, 14. And as the office, “he has always been that mentoring guide to me,” Lui says. “Even recently, I discovered that he had been a guide for other people.” Friends have told him how Doug influenced their careers. One said he taught him how to shuck oysters, and another said that, as a kid, “he’s the only one who didn’t judge me.” Growing up, Lui says, “I would go to him for advice on anything, from how to fix something in the house, to career advice, and advice in life”—counsel that would come to go in both directions in Doug’s later years, “which was really special,” he says. “He’s always been my best friend.”